Rights groups accuse Israel of Palestinian detainee abuse

For months, the United Nations, Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations and local and international media outlets have sounded the alarm about allegations of severe ill-treatment, torture and rape of Palestinians in Israeli detention centers and prisons.

At the center of the allegations is Sde Teiman, a military base in southern Israel where a facility to process suspected militants was established after the terror attacks by Hamas and Islamic Jihad on Israel on October 7, 2023, that saw around 1,200 people killed and more than 240 taken hostage.

Two weeks ago, dozens of far-right Israeli ultranationalists, including lawmakers, stormed two military facilities — Sde Teiman and Beit Lid, a military court, in southern Israel. But they weren't protesting the alleged abuse of Palestinian detainees held at Sde Teiman — they were expressing solidarity with nine Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reservists who have been detained for interrogation by military police. 

The reservists are suspected of raping and severely abusing a Palestinian man at Sde Teiman. His injuries were so serious that he had to be hospitalized. This week, Israel's Channel 12 published a video apparently showing the rape of a detainee in the facility. 

The ensuing discussion over the storming of the military base shows how influential Israel's far right has become. While Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for calm, other politicians openly supported the soldiers' actions and called for them to be granted immunity.

'Sde Teiman worked as a black hole. No one knew anything'

The case has brought to light once again the reported ill-treatment of Palestinians in Israeli detention centers and prisons, allegations of which have multiplied in recent months.

The first testimonies of abuse at Sde Teiman came in December 2023, from whistleblowers, mainly Israeli doctors, who were working at the base. They said many detainees were not told where they were at first.

"Their eyes were covered the whole time. For 24 hours, weeks and months. They were cuffed behind their back the whole time," Naji Abbas, the director of prisoners and detainees department at Physicians for Human Rights Israel, told DW. The organization has published several reports about allegations of ill-treatment in the past months.

"For weeks, or even months, Sde Teiman worked as a black hole. No one knew anything about this place," said Abbas. 

After the October 7 attacks and Israel's subsequent retaliation in the Gaza Strip, Sde Teiman is where most Palestinian detainees were held without charge and without contact to the outside world, interrogated without legal representation. Many have since been released back into Gaza and it seems they had no links to Hamas, which is considered a terrorist organization by the EU, US and others, or any other militant group.

Some were reportedly picked up at checkpoints set up by the Israeli military when people had to flee from northern Gaza because of heavy bombing. Israel's ongoing offensive in Gaza has killed at least 39,600 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza.

Palestinians detained under Unlawful Combatants Law

Though it's unclear how many Palestinians were held in Sde Teiman, all of them were reportedly detained under Israel's Unlawful Combatants Law, which was amended by the country's parliament, the Knesset, in December. The law allows the Israeli military to arrest suspected militants and hold them for 90 days without access to a lawyer. In most cases, Israel does not provide information regarding the whereabouts of those detained, leaving family members in Gaza in the dark about the fate of their missing relatives. 

Working from numbers provided by the Israeli Prison Service, the NGO HaMoked estimates there are currently around 9,800 Palestinians in Israeli prisons. At least 1,584 have been classified as "unlawful combatants."

The Israeli military has insisted that the detention facilities set up after October 7 are run in accordance with international law. Following media investigations and a petition by several human rights groups to close Sde Teiman, Israel's High Court asked the state to transfer the detainees to prison facilities.

While most Palestinians have now been moved from Sde Teiman to other prisons, as of August 8 at least 28 detainees remained in the facility. 

In response to an earlier investigation by the US daily newspaper The New York Times into alleged abuse at Sde Teiman, the IDF said that it "rejects outright allegations concerning systematic abuse of detainees in the 'Sde Teiman' detention facility, including allegations of sexually abusing detainees, electrocuting detainees and stripping detainees of their clothes during interrogations." It also said that it would investigate any concrete claims brought forward.

Palestinian detainee: 'I was handcuffed and blindfolded'

Several former detainees have spoken out about the conditions in which they were held in Israel. 

Jamal Dukhan, 57, was detained by the Israeli military in Jabalia in May of this year. The former Palestinian Authority employee told DW from Gaza that he was interrogated and beaten before being taken to a military site with other men from the Jabalia refugee camp. He thinks the site was most likely Sde Teiman.

"There were beatings all the way to the prison, with their feet and hands, insults from the soldiers and cursing in both Arabic and Hebrew. Throughout the prison period, I was handcuffed and blindfolded,” Dukhan said. 

Inside the detention facility, people were not allowed to talk to each other, and they were not even allowed to remove their blindfolds and cuffs to eat, according to Dukhan.

"The food was little pieces of cheese and tuna. There were two bathrooms. And the names of those wanting to use the bathroom had to be registered in advance," he said. 

During his time in captivity, Dukhan said he was interrogated about neighbors and whether they had any affiliations to Hamas or other militant groups. "When interrogated by the intelligence, there is a room where one sleeps and it has loudspeakers around the clock with a loud and annoying sound," he explained. 

Dukhan was released without charges and brought back to Gaza after about a month.

Alleged torture, sexual violence 'only tip of the iceberg'

Physicians for Human Rights told DW that it had obtained a copy of guidelines issued by the Israeli Health Ministry that stated prisoners should remain handcuffed during treatment and doctors should not sign their names on medical records. 

"Keeping people handcuffed for two weeks is torture," said Abbas from the NGO. "People started getting infections and in some cases, doctors had to amputate limbs."

In a report released on July 31, the UN's Human Rights Office said detainees were held in "cage-like facilities, stripped naked for prolonged periods, wearing only diapers." It also spoke of "prolonged blindfolding, deprivation of food, sleep and water, and being subjected to electric shocks and being burnt with cigarettes. Some detainees said dogs were released on them, and others said they were subjected to waterboarding." 

Human rights organizations have said the allegations of abuse do not only concern military detention facilities. This week, nine independent experts, special rapporteurs appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, released a statement saying that "reports of alleged torture and sexual violence in Israel's Sde Teiman prison are grossly illegal and revolting, but they only represent the tip of the iceberg." 

In a report entitled "Welcome to Hell," Israeli human rights group B'Tselem said abuse had become normalized across Israel's prison system. The NGO collected testimony from 55 Palestinians who were held in Israeli prisons and later released, almost all without charge. The group said abuse was now so systematic that it had become "institutionalized," and described the Israeli prison system as a network of "torture camps."

B'Tselem's report also alleged that prison conditions have particularly worsened under far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. 

Israeli Prison Service rejects allegations

The Israeli Prison Service rejected the allegations in a statement to DW, insisting that "it operates according to the provisions of the law and under the supervision of the state comptroller."

"All basic rights required are fully applied by professionally trained prison guards," the statement read. "We are not aware of the claims you described and as far as we know, no such events have occurred under IPS responsibility. Nonetheless, prisoners and detainees have the right to file a complaint that will be fully examined and addressed by official authorities."

The statement also noted that since October 7, 2023, "as instructed by Minister Ben Gvir, the prison conditions of the national security prisoners have been made strict in accordance with the minister's policy of stopping the improved prison conditions they have received in the past."

With regard to the detained Israeli military reservists suspected of raping a Palestinian man, the Israeli military said on Tuesday that "the military prosecution asked to extend the detention of the five soldiers suspected of serious abuse until Sunday in order to carry out further investigative activities."

It further said that the "the court also stated that since the previous hearing, evidence has been added that strengthens the suspicion against the five soldiers."

Israeli media reported this week that the Palestinian detainee whom IDF reservists allegedly sexually assaulted was recently transferred back from hospital to Sde Teiman.

Hazem Balousha contributed reporting from Cairo.